Minor Detail
by Elles Green
Summary: Despite noting that this fire ball was a great distraction, Lee was aware of everyone's eyes on him...and not in a good way.


Minor Detail

This pretty much started out as a bunch of dialog that I put together at the last minute. Hope it makes sense. - E.G.

[Big Legal Disclaimer - see my page for that]

* * *

So far all the preparations for Lee's birthday were going smoothly. The venue was great, and the decorations better. It had taken everyone's help, but it had really paid off. At the rate they were going, they might even have as much as an hour to kill before the party started.

"We're actually making pretty good time here, just a few last minute things and we're all set." Sakura beamed.

"Alright, I'll put these over here. Hey Naruto, put the candles in the cake a while." Tenten said, handing him the candle boxes.

"OK!" Naruto set to work, but after placing in the eleventh candle, he started to have a bit of trouble.

"Tenten, how many candles was it again?"

She paused a moment. "Ummm…16?"

"Wait, you don't know?"

"Well I think he's a bit younger than Neji and I, but I really-"

"You see him practically every day!"

"Well it's not like it's one of those things that just come up in conversation!"

Starting an argument wasn't going to get them anywhere or help anything.

"Ok, let's see if someone else knows." Tenten sighed finally.

Naruto walked up to Shino and Kiba, who had just finished putting up the last of the balloons.

"Hey, yeah, um…random question, but do you know how old Bushy Brow's turning?"

Both of them shook their heads.

Kiba then turned to Shino. "Well he's older than us right?"

"Yeah, but how much older is the question…"

"Ah…"

They asked everyone with no result, until they came to Iruka-sensei

"No I don't know, but I'm sure Gai does."

"It makes sense, I mean, they're always together." Naruto added.

At that moment, Tenten saw Neji walking by.

"Neji, do you know where Gai–sensei is?"

Neji thought a moment "He and Kakashi–sensei left a few minutes ago to get more ice."

Naruto started to get pissed.

"Oh my god! So no one here knows?"

"Calm down, we'll think of something"

But Iruka-sensei, we don't have much time left!

He looked at the clock. "Relax, it's quarter 'til seven. We still have fifteen minutes"

"Oh actually," said Choji who happened to overhear them "that clock up there's about ten minutes slow."

Naruto frantically tried to think of a plan to save his ass.

"AH! Ok, alright. How about we get someone that doesn't know him as well to ask him how old he is, so they can use that as an excuse."

"Like who?"

"I dunno…"

"Alright, we're running out of time, here just stick all these in the cake and we'll say we wanted to go for it looking….dramatic, or something…" Tenten suggested

"OK! OK!" Naruto agreed, but he still felt bad for not remembering.

* * *

HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Everyone shouted as Lee walked.

Once the initial surprise was over, and everyone had calmed down, Iruka brought out the cake and set it on the table. Despite noting that this fire ball was a great distraction, Lee was aware of everyone's eyes on him. And not in a good way.

"Whoa….what are you trying to do? Set me on fire?" Lee joked.

"Eh heh, no." Tenten nervously mumbled " We just just wanted to go all out…with these candles, and we-"

"Kinda forgot who old you are so we just stuck two packs worth on the cake!" Naruto blurted out, unable to take it anymore.

"Hey! Does your one way train of thought lead straight to your mouth?" Sakura chided

"Sorry, it's just…"

"Wait, so that's why all of you are looking at me weird?" Lee asked.

"Yeah, we had an estimate, but…we weren't sure."

Naruto was feeling more and more guilty as this went on. Lee had been one of the first people to wish him a happy birthday on his special day. And the fact that he hadn't returned the favor saddened him.

He had to say something to try to redeem himself.

"Ugh, this is all wrong. I'll bet your gonna say that I'm a bad friend right now and-"

Lee's eyes widened "Naruto?"

Lee then tried to say something but was quickly cut off.

"I mean, sure we don't see each other a whole lot, with all those conflicting schedules and things, but really-"

"Naruto."

"I'm not done! Anyway, what I wanna say is that before you get mad at me, it will never happen again, I promise!"

To add emphasis to his point (and maybe some drama), he walked over and set his hand on Lee's shoulder while staring at him intently. Of course this pretty much countered any affirming effect it was supposed to have, because it was making Lee a little uncomfortable.

"Naruto, all I was going to say was I think that rug just caught on fire."

Sure enough, some of the candles had slid off the crowded cake and onto the rug, which was now smoldering.

"WHAT?"

Naruto made a mad dash over to it and frantically stomped out the flame.

Shino, who was standing on the other side of Lee, mumbled something that sounded like "Sorry about all this…"

"You know you could have just asked me."

"Well, we tried to wing it."

"I'm not mad or anything. Actually, I would rather you just said so instead of beating around the bush so much."

"That's what I told them!" Naruto yelled from over at the rug.

"You did not!" Kiba shouted back

While the two of them argued, Chouji came up next to Lee.

"Ok, since you said you'd rather people ask you. You didn't tell us yet, how old are you turning?"

Lee shrugged and smiled. "I guess not, - as of today, I'm 18!"

Everyone who had been listening to them went quiet for a moment.

"Seriously?" Chouji asked

"Yeah"

"Um, yeah we were a bit off."

Lee took another look at the cake. "What makes you say that?" he joked again.

"No really"-Kiba cut in-"I thought you were gonna be 16, and so did a lot of us, but now we know!" he said as he tried to smile through the apparent awkwardness.

Before Lee could say anything, Kiba looked back over to Naruto.

"Naruto, s'the fire out yet?"

"I think so!"

"Good!"

Naruto looked down at the charred spot on the rug. It defiantly wasn't going to come out. And hopefully like that spot, Lee's age would actually stay in his mind for another year. No guarantee, but he knew he wouldn't forget anytime soon.

But he was snapped out of his thoughts when he saw another candle fall on the rug and flames starting to flicker.

"Oh come on!"

He had to get rid of some of these candles. He'd better start counting.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LEE!

(Note (you can skip this if you want)): Ok, the Naruto Data books are probably going to prove me wrong on this. But the way I've always seen it, I always thought that Lee was older than Neji and Tenten. But not by much, because I remember in one of the guide books I saw, it said that Lee was 13-14 in Part 1, while it only said that Neji and Tenten were only 13 (but that might be wrong too). I thought of it as Lee was born in the November of the year before Neji and Tenten, (like the academy held him back or something) so it would only be a 5-7 month difference. So that is why people would be surprised. And yeah, this also isn't accurate year wise, because if this were set in 2010, he would be 26-27, not 18. And now I'm rambling again, hope it at least made sense to you.


End file.
